A new professional group has emerged for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer community in Calhoun County.

The group, Calhoun County Equality, formed last month to bring resources and tools to the LGBTQ community. The group will host monthly events throughout the county to develop professional relationships within the community. The group's next event will be a mixer from 5 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at the Ale House in Springfield, 1600 Avenue A,

This mixer will give the LGBTQ community the opportunity to connect with manufacturing, retail and health care professionals. The event is free and open to the public. The organization does not have 501(c)3 status, but representatives said they hope to gain that credential soon.

Calhoun County Equality representatives said the organization will focus mainly on professional development and will support other LGBTQ groups in the community. The group aspires to build relationships with Equal Employment Opportunity practices that include the LGBTQ community while also providing awareness and tools to create equal opportunity practices.

"We're looking more at the institutions that already exist and bringing them up to speed," said Mike Madden, president of Calhoun County Equality.

Madden said there are barriers to the LGBTQ community in the professional world. He said there is a fear of not knowing whether a company is accepting of LGBTQ people. That fear, he said, leaves them a step behind their co-workers.

Madden said the idea for the new group spawned from having conversations with people in the community. He said the group is focusing on the county as a whole by extending a hand to LGBTQ populations in smaller, surrounding communities.

"Get more contacts, people will get a chance to network with other people, find out they're not alone," Madden said. "Just be able to get that little bit of networking they may need to get a leg up in the business world."

Madden said groups like Battle Creek Pride and Calhoun County Equality are necessary.

"Michigan's not a perfectly friendly state toward LGBT people," he said. "I think part of the goal isn't to force equality but to show all these other groups, work places, businesses there's a definite benefit to being more friendly and more diverse."

Although the city of Battle Creek approved an anti-discrimination ordinance for LGBTQ people in employment and rental housing last year, there is no countywide or statewide law to protect them.

Last week a bill was introduced in the Michigan House of Representatives to protect lesbians and gays from housing and employment discrimination – but it made no mention of transgender people. To expand the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act to include lesbians and gays, House Speaker Jase Bolger, R-Marshall, said a religious freedom restoration act would have to pass that would allow people to freely practice their faith, whether they support the LGBTQ community or not.

"No one should be able to discriminate on any basis, nor should any be concerned about anyone being discriminated against, even if they are a religious body," said Larry Dillon, a board member of Calhoun County Equality.

Dillon said there is a need in the county for the development of LGBTQ people. He said it's a service that hasn't been offered to the community in the past.

"As an emerging group of people they have been repressed in the past and are just finding their way, so to speak, as discrimination is more and more being lifted from them," Dillon said.